The Broken: Rising Out of Fundamentalism

She was broken. Her family was falling apart. Her worldview shattered. Everything she thought and believed had just exploded in her face. She was pregnant and had other children and was deciding the rest of her life – fight to restore and heal the family or venture out alone.

Waking up to truth is devastating. When everything that was once warm and safe is suddenly cold and dangerous. When the fear of falling back into those old thought patterns isolates. Is there strength to walk away from dangerous beliefs when that walking will cost friendships and not guarantee family? Staying in the known guarantees a split of family.

She had been erased. 10 years of fundamentalist teachings had erased her personhood. She had become a shell, a Stepford Wife, existing for the pleasure and service of others. Personal interests and joys no longer mattered. Only others’ everything mattered.

She lived in fear. Those who didn’t conform faced discipline – a public calling out. Rebuke to shame her in to submission and obedience.

But she awakened. She found her strength. She accepted what she had fallen into within this fundamentalist world and she grew. She discovered all the parts about herself that she loved and she embraced them.

She is me. My awakening was four years ago. It was a slow process which began two years earlier. I credit these oils and the friendships in this community for the emotional healing which enabled the awakening. It took my life falling apart four years ago to be jarred into seeing things for what they were. It took the jarring to awaken and grown in to the person I need to be – for me and for my family.

Our family is together. We have fought through. We are deconstructing. We are growing.

I had closed off my spiritual side. She was too raw and too scared. She wasn’t ready. She’s been whispering to me that she is ready to be explored. I don’t know what that means or where this road will lead, but it is time to reach out to her, to my spiritual side, and begin walking. In love. Always, in love.